Several weeks back, I mentioned Marketog, a 6-week course for photographers who want to put the buzz back in their photography business.

Several of you dove in and enrolled in the course using my affiliate link. Some of you discovered that it takes work to market your business. No surprises there that marketing your photography business takes work, but what Marketog does is that it gives you a solid framework to make it all happen for you.

Jamie Swanson, who designed the course, has opened the course up again for enrollment and she tells me it closes tonight (Sunday, March 9th).

She also tells me that she will definitely increase the price by $300, the next time she opens it up for enrollment either in the late summer or early fall. I have three words for you: Sign Up Now!

Not only will you save money, but you'll be a whole season ahead, establishing yourself as the-go-to photographer in town.

There is still an insane 45-day refund policy (you have to show that you have done all the exercises though). There is still the lifetime access to the course and knowing Jamie, Marketog will continue to get updated in some interesting ways. And then there is the helpful and private Facebook forum where ideas and inspiration keep flying back and forth so rapidly that you will never be left thinking you are in this alone. In fact, you will be in very good company. I am enrolled in this course.

You want in. I know it. I keep getting these private messages asking me what I think about Marketog. If it isn't the best thing for you, a) I wouldn't be recommending it and b) you can always get a refund (provided you do the work).

But I wondered what I could do to help you market your business and then it hit me.

No joke, I suspect the value of this interview with you is at least $500. Does that inspire you to sign up for Marketog now? I hope so.

So, that's how you put the buzz in your photography business.

But you are going to have to sign up for Marketog pretty quickly. At 11.59 pm EST tonight, the enrollment closes and my bonus offer vanishes as well. I look forward to connecting with you.

Mr. Farnsworth was a terrific music teacher. Affable, yet stern. He would tell me each time I would return to take drum lessons, “Seshu, failing to practice is practicing to fail.”

It’s taken me nearly 30 years to absorb that. Sometimes, it would be obvious that getting my stuff done in time was beneficial and sometimes procrastination would get the better of me and I paid dearly. Still, creating a plan or a workflow and being organized simply has not come naturally to me.

Is that how you feel at least a few times a year? Do you feel that being organized would create at least a semblance of efficiency? Have you struggled to keep track of your client contact information or sales tax deadlines? Are you sometimes delivering your client orders later than when you promised them?

My friend Eric O’Connor, a wedding photographer in Chicago, tried to get me to think in about workflow. Several times. I remain in awe at how his allows him to photograph 30 weddings a year and be a father and a husband.

“Creating a system,” he told me once, was the ticket to being stress-free and happy.

I have a short stack of scratch paper filled with workflow ideas and what I would do the minute a potential client rang me. I had steps that I would follow after the portrait session was booked. But what would come after the shoot and in what order? Sadly, I had too many ideas and no action. This is mostly because having and maintaining a system requires clarity of thought and the “D” word … discipline.

Thankfully, Design Aglow is the photographer’s friend. I lean on the team there to provide me with ideas and templates. Just in time for the start of the new year, they launched a photographers’ studio planner called The Big Picture.

Like all their templates, The Big Picture, does not disappoint when it comes to how it is presented. Minimalistic design meets elegance. The introductory section says, “it’s a repository for your hopes and dreams.” So true.

The Big Picture guides you through a short writing exercise where you enunciate your goals. Then you are gently coaxed into breaking down your goals into actionable tasks. Huge win for me.

There are templates for daily, weekly and monthly activities surrounding your studio. The exercise is in writing it all down and being able to refer back to it constantly. I think this is brilliant because it instills that sense of discipline and accountability to oneself that I mentioned above.

Keeping track of clients, venues and vendors (mostly for wedding photographers) is now easy as 1-2-3. There is a questionnaire and a time table that helps you through your online and off-line (local) marketing.

Want to track your website and blog statistics? Yes, there is a rather intricate table for that too. The Big Picture also includes income and expense reports that you fill out and also a mileage tracker (which I have usually forgot to log in the past).

The Big Picture ends with a long list of recommended business books one should read to stay informed and inspired. There were quite a few in this list that I hadn’t even heard of before. So, Design Aglow, thanks for that too!

I don’t think this team has missed any detail when it comes to putting this studio planner together. I know as I launch my new website and business this month, The Big Picture is going to help me stay focused and remain efficient through the year. It’ll be a binder that I take with me to client meetings and I’ll refer to it when I am trying to assess my business. It promises to provide me a macroscopic view of my business and will tell me about its health from month-to-month. I no longer have to fret about keeping tabs on my workflow or if my quarterly sales tax payments are late.

Now, there are a couple of things I would have liked to have seen in The Big Picture download: 1) InDesign files to further customize the templates and 2) perhaps down the road, an electronic version that we can refer to while we are in the field, say an iPad application that could display all of these bits of information?

[UPDATE: Both InDesign & Photoshop files are included! I had failed to open all of the folders that came as part of the zip'd download file! Sorry about the error!]

That said, The Big Picture is a remarkable achievement because it so neatly brings so many elements of one’s business in an easily accessible folder or binder. I know there are several other options in the market but as a die-hard Design Aglow fan, I have to urge you to take a look at this product first.

On January 15th (that’s tomorrow), the introductory pricing of $69 ends. Make this the first business expense you enter into The Big Picture for 2014!

In other words, buy it now.

This guest blog is by a good friend and fellow Connecticut wedding photographer, Richard Esposito. In addition to being a photographer, RE as he is known, is also called upon to teach efficient workflow systems to other photography studios. To some lucky ones, he plays mentor. His Emmy (yes, that EMMY) not withstanding, RE is starting to reconnect with his video side and bringing true fusion to discerning clients getting married all over the world.

Needless to say, a lot has changed in the world of photography over the last 5 or so years. Remember film? Using the same camera for more than 3 years? Just about every professional photographer is using a digital camera that gets replaced with a newer, better, version after one year of use. It's become a rather expensive hobby for amateur's and a financial burden for some professionals. With technology getting better and especially cheaper, we've all seen a new type of photographer emerge. Call them what you will, uncle Bob, cousin Carl, or “I have a friend that took a photography class in college.” This is the new competition. And they are getting cheaper than the cost of the camera. I've heard of a number of professionals that have sold everything they had and closed their doors for good. We can't compete with free, or “I'll shoot your wedding and hand you a disc for $500. I know I seem to be getting off topic, but it's leading to our newest issue. You are not the only photographer at a wedding anymore.

Gone are the days of capturing a sea of guests with genuine emotion on their faces. Now you have to give an elbow to Aunt Clair who's blocking the aisle with her Digital Rebel in hand as the bride makes her grand entrance. I used to love capturing guests emotion during the first dance, parent dance, even the toasts. But now my subjects are a handful of guests with point and shoots held up blocking their faces, or the tops of everyones head because they are looking down at the back of the camera to check the photo they just took. My favorite moment so far was a photo of the bride going down the aisle from behind. Everyone in front of the bride has their cameras up, everyone that the bride has past is still facing the back of the church with the heads down looking at the back of their camera. Very few people stopped to enjoy the moment of a father walking his daughter down the aisle on her wedding day. I did have a beautiful photo of a bride coming down the aisle with great emotion on her fathers face. However there were hues of red and green across them both thanks to all of the focusing beams from guests cameras. That's an instant black and white! The cake cutting has become my favorite time now that I have no room to move around thanks to the crowd of people and cameras. It's amateur suffocation.

You are not the only photographer at a wedding anymore.

Just when you feel good that you are getting the job done, you're in the zone, there's a tap tap tap on your shoulder. It's Aunt Clair again, Rebel in hand, suggesting “that’s a nice photo of the flower girl over there. Look she’s spinning around! Hey girls look over here!” Well Claire, if you didn't just interrupt me I would be photographing that, but now i missed it so you can talk to me about it. While trying to capture an emotional father daughter dance, someone will walk up close to them and say “Hey, over here!”, completely interrupting the moment just so they can get a photo with their faces smiling at their camera. They completely missed the point. Welcome to a world where lighting, composition, creativity, and emotion don't matter to a wedding guest. All you need is a persons face looking at the camera.

Many of us put out a little slideshow of images at the wedding reception. It's been a great way to show guests your work and generate some business, especially with the reception venue. It also satisfies the instant gratification generation of guests. I've gotten home from a wedding and checked a clients Facebook page to see that she has already been tagged in photos that Uncle Bob took at the wedding. I can't compete with that. I hand out event cards at the reception with the website and password to see the photos “approximately 8 weeks after the wedding.” One night, after seeing the slideshow at the reception, the grooms step father comes up to me with his iPhone and has my online viewing website loaded. He said he couldn't get the wedding. Hello! I'm still photographing it! Really?! Many times I have guests say “Great! I'll check them out tomorrow.” Tomorrow? Let me hand you a few thousand photos, have you review and edit them and see how fast you get them all up. Let’s factor in that it's the end of the wedding season and you've just done 2 weddings per weekend for the last 8 weeks.

It's no wonder that professional Photographers are having a hard time competing with amateurs. We get in their way, we don't know what we’re doing, it takes forever to get your images, and we really expensive! If you think it's expensive to hire a professional photographer for one day, the emotional cost of hiring an amateur lasts forever.

The Price We Pay

So how do we convince an engaged couple to spend $3-10k with a professional? According to Market Watch, wedding photographers are the most overpaid jobs in America, saying “Total work for each wedding is generally a sit-down consultation combined with a single day spent following the happy couple. While equipment costs and film development must be covered, thanks to digital technology such costs have been heavily reduced. Unfortunately for the consumer, photographers do not offer any reduction in price for missed photos, amateur shots, or other mediocre work product.”

So let’s talk briefly about what it costs to be a professional wedding photographer. My second photographer here was looking to buy his own equipment. Just to start off with the basics he was up to $8,000. Imagine the cost of what I carry. Oh, and I have to insure all of it. Then there’s vehicle expenses, commissions for running credit cards, equipment repairs, I spent $1200 on postage this year (postage!!!), continuing education, computer and software upgrades, hard drives, hard drives, hard drives, it costs to make albums, some of us pay staff… I really could go on. Oh wait! providing for my family? Putting food on our table and the discount outlet clothes on our back? A professional photographer doesn’t have a “real job” during the week so we have to pay our own health care for our family, save for retirement, and hope for a weeks vacation that comes out of our pocket. I did 25 weddings this year and my expenses were double the average 2 person family income in Connecticut (according to census.gov).

For the other side of the story, the International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers did an awesome survey of photographers recently. I know when I started my business, everyone I knew thought I just worked weekends and did nothing during the week. We have a great lifestyle of taking photos, traveling, and partying.

Here’s reality: 70 hours a week through our 6-7 month season and 40 hours a week off season. There is no mention in here regarding time with family, charity work, and taking any time off. Only 12.2% off our time during business hours is spent taking pictures.

If I didn’t have the expenses that I have, or spend this much time getting everything done, I’d be out of business. I’d have to get a full time job and just do photography on the weekend. I’d be your Uncle Bob.

Update from Seshu: Since publishing this blog post above, there have been other similar posts out in the interwebs:

This is a guest post by Alethea Cheng Fitzpatrick, NYC based architect, interior designer, photographer AND mom! Alethea has her own business, alethea cheng fitzpatrick photography.

I hear photographers talking about digital images all the time.

I've noticed that portrait photographers tend to be the ones bemoaning the fact that their clients “just want the CD”. Mostly it's because those same clients also think that the CD should be really inexpensive, because it “didn't cost the photographer much” to make.

Wedding photographers, on the other hand, often celebrate the fact that their clients don't really want albums any more. They claim that it's hard to make money off albums because they take so long to design and cost so much to make. They are quite happy to wow their brides and grooms by having an iPad pre-loaded with all their photos waiting on their doorstep when they return from their honeymoon.

The different perspectives are interesting, and there's a simple reason for the difference – wedding photographers typically charge up front for a package and include the high resolution files because they are already assured of the sale. Portrait photographers depend on post-session sales and, unless properly priced, high res files undercut their other products.

But regardless of the type of photographer you are, in both cases I strongly believe that you are doing your CLIENT a disservice if you only give them the CD. It is not in their best interest!

Here's why.

Fifty years from now, where is that iPad going to be? Where is that CD going to be?

What about a hundred and fifty years from now? Or longer?

Technology is going to COMPLETELY change, I don't need to tell you that, but have you thought about how your super fancy high resolution digital images of today… might not look so good on technology down the road, or might not be viewable at all? Now, I do not have any expertise in “future proofing” digital files, but then, you probably don't either, and nor do your clients. And a quick Google search seems to show that … no one really knows, and one recommended strategy is to make hard copies of important documents and photos!

Yes, your clients may upwardly convert their files, but do you want to depend on that?

Prints and albums (of archival quality – which of course you are going to provide) are your most future proof medium. They can sit on a shelf for years and still be viewed with no additional effort required by anyone.

But even aside from the future proofing issue, even assuming that the format you pick for your digital images is readable forever, is that really the only way you want your clients to experience your images?

Forget 50 years from now, even tomorrow, does viewing a digital images come anywhere close to the experience of holding viewing an actual physical piece of artwork in person?

Honestly? If you think it does then, seriously, you are not getting your prints made at the right lab!

I love my prints – love love LOVE them, and so do my clients. In fact, some of my clients start out thinking they just want the high resolution files but after they see the artwork products I offer (including museum quality framed and bamboo mounted prints, custom designed heirloom photobooks on presentation stands and beautiful notecards), they “get it”. Often they end up with everything BUT the high resolution files they started out so concerned about and are very happy about it.

Why?

Well, first of all, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying DON'T offer digital files. I absolutely understand the importance and value of digital files and I offer them to all my clients. I'm just saying that to ONLY provide digital files is doing your clients a disservice. I follow the recommendations that Alicia Caine makes in Easy As Pie (I highly recommend this resource by the way – well worth the investment). I offer high resolution files but a la carte, they are the most expensive item on my price list, and it's actually less expensive for clients to purchase high resolution files AND a proof box. I also offer low resolution web-sized watermarked files but only after a minimum purchase of other artwork has been made. Basically, my pricing is structured in a such a way that no client ends up with only digital files.

So how do clients end up changing their mind about the high resolution files?

Well, first of all, a big reason people want digital files is so they can share them online and via e-mail, and the low res web files take care of that. It helps that I offer my low res web files in the form of a finished product – an online digital storybook that is a cohesive presentation, designed and paced to tell a story, and set to licensed music. It can also easily be shared in a matter of clicks.

Secondly, they want them for archival purposes, but as we've discussed, hard copies are better for that.

Finally, they want the freedom to make their own prints in the future … and those that are really motivated to have this option available are willing to pay for it (or I am just not the right photographer for them). But most clients, when it comes down to it, and presented with the beautiful artwork options I offer, plus the fact that I sit with them and help them select their images and put together their order, not to mention frame, deliver and install their custom designed wall gallery, know deep or even not so deep down that they will not make such beautiful artwork themselves, and even if they had the resources and knowledge to do so, probably would never get around to it.

Think about it. If you hand your client a CD, they have to put it in their computer, open it up, download them to their desktop, sort through the images, select the ones they want to print, upload them to a printing service, collect or receive their prints, get them framed, buy the hardware to hang them, and then hang them.

Yes, some clients are very motivated and will do this. But most of my clients are busy professionals and they want to spend their spare time hanging out with their kids, not traipsing to a framer or a hardware store.

And how many clients can design an album? How many will?

My high resolution digital files are my highest priced a la carte product, because if they were any less, I would be underselling all my other products. But I feel that my clients get a LOT more value out of ordering artwork and albums from me, and after a certain spend level, I actually throw in the high res files at what works out to be pretty much for free as part of a collection.

Many photographers follow a “shoot and burn” model I know, and if it works for you, great. But if you're doing it because you think that is what clients want, consider whether it really is in their best interest, not to mention yours. You know how I feel about it – please don't just give them the CD!

How do you handle high resolution files for clients? How about low resolution files? What is your take on delivering just the digital images and nothing else to clients? Who wins and why do your clients almost always lose?